Provide training opportunities for university students, agricultural consultants and farmers to facilitate the transition to the bioeconomy in the agricultural sector and help revitalize rural areas in the EU.
Context
Farming in EU is essential to livelihoods and local development, while facing many challenges such as limited resources and growing environmental challenges. Bioeconomy is a solution towards this problem. For a successful bioeconomy strategy in farming, further support is needed for the workforce, more knowledge about the impact and business models of bioeconomy, raising more awareness and involvement of a wider range of actors. Training in bioeconomy is still absent in many EU countries and there is a shortage of people with higher education in the farming sector. The transition to bioeconomy needs professionals with multidisciplinary, managerial, and cross sectoral expertise. Higher education and vocational training can play a critical role in this transition integrating dedicated curricula and training. RELIEF aims to develop and deliver an innovative approach for teaching bio-economy in farming, by developing specific learning resources addressing HEIs students and farming practitioners.
Objectives
- to design a training approach starting from the skills needed to facilitate the transition of farming sector to bioeconomy;
- to enhance the knowledge, skills and competencies of HE students, agronomists, farmer consultants in bioeconomy and prepare them to support farmers towards the transition process
- to develop an innovative and multidisciplinary approach for teaching the integration of bioeconomy principles and practices in farming;
- to promote the cooperation and co-creation of knowledge between higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET), research, and the business farming sector in order to contribute to innovation in business modelling based on bioeconomy and in education and training;
- to empower multiple stakeholders in agriculture, policy makers, regional governments across Europe to utilize high quality, state-of-the-art learning resources, available through an e-learning repository, for the knowledge in bioeconomy to be developed and spread.
Activities
- Conduct the analysis of the RELIEF training approach;
- Develop of the training material, methodology, assessment and accreditation;
- Design of the RELIEF e-learning environment and gamified resources;
- Pilot testing and evaluation of the training material and methodologies;
- Set up of Bio-Economy Hubs in each country.
Resources
- Analysis of Training in Bioeconomy in farming sector;
- RELIEF Curriculum;
- Training and Assessment Methodology;
- E-learning platform;
- E-learning platform pilot testing report;
- Report on implementation of the piloting testing;
- E-Newsletters;
- Policy Briefs;
- Relief’s Bioeconomy Toolkits;
- Bioeconomy Hubs.
Impact
- 40 HEIs and VET providers 120 farmers/farming companies 40 agronomists /farmers consultants, 20 other stakeholders (policy makers, farmers associations, etc) involved in research and training need analysis;
- 550 HE students, current agronomists, farmer consultants and farmers participating in training piloting;
- 100 people reached by 4 Bio-Economy Hubs established to support farmers so as to develop bioeconomy competences and mind-set and be constantly supported to adopt new sustainable business models;
- 150 participants in workshops and informed about Relief training approach and the training portal;
- 100 participants in the international conference;
- 10000 entities and individuals from the target groups informed on the project.
Partners
- UOP – University of Peloponnese (Greece, coordinator)
- ReadLab P.C. (Greece)
- OTC – Olympic Training & Consulting LTD (Greece)
- CERTH – Centre for Research and Technology Hellas Greece (Greece)
- UNIFI – Università degli Studi di Firenze (Italy)
- Terinov (Portugal)
- Innovade LI (Cyprus)
- MDU – Mälardalen University (Sweden)
- UAc – Universidade Dos Acores (Portugal)
- Dream (Italy)
- SwIdeas (Sweden)
- CESIE (Italy)
